I was watching
a little bird, caught in the gusts and grasping of the storm, the calling
from the heart of chaos. And I felt for the little bird, scurrying --
trying to find its way away...from the grasping and twisting of the
storm. But, the storming was everywhere...

I thought for a moment that the bird was me.

There's a maelstrom brewing now; and the tall Lombardy
poplars that are across the way are curling to the north, carrying the
dust of the winds, inbound -- from the south. The skies are steely grey,
ripping with curling vortices of darkness, boiling and roiling. And
the birds roar through the sky, buoyed on winds of oyster white, that
is pouring from the eyes of the gods, stormgatherers, lurking over the
waters, stirring up the evening sky -- like a froth.

And there are storms brewing for me, continuing to pour
out the difficulties of trying to lead a team of people, through the
toil and tumult. It's a pounding that shatters the deck like a long
drumming from the hounds of hell.

And the waters boil with uncertainty and the sharp-toothed
rocks that are beneath the mistbound waves; even the lighthouse is unclear
-- lain beneath the stretching waves and the shearing sleeves of fog,
rolling in. Rolling in.

Where is the beacon?

I wonder.

And I stand on the deck, clear; and the rain comes, and
the lightning comes. And I try to look at it and say: "how beautiful"
-- as I am wont to do, at the heart of the storm. But this is so hard,
as people's lives are tossed up, perhaps on the rocks, but certainly
--in the difficulties of unknowing; and uncertainty -- they cast the
bones of fear, in the eyes of the others.

And there it is: nothing is certain. Absolutely nothing;
except death. And there is a certainty of life, too. It comes; it goes.

No storm shall reveal herself and her furies until she
is upon you. You cannot tell the power of the storm when she is far
out at sea; she reveals herself when she is right there, on you.

And you must stand there, looking into her eyes, and stare
back; and try to find the beauty of it all. Look to the heart of the
storm and see behind it, something of peace. Lash yourself to the deck;
hang on and simply try to relish the majesty of the storm. And the tossing
asunder. And hope that, somehow, it will be merely a cleansing, a reordering
that will give you something to be thankful for, something beautiful
to see -- after the storm has passed.

But even this may be a while, the storm might be a long
raging and turbulent, bullroaring tornado that, before it is done, shall
rip everything.

And where is the peace in that? But there must be some
peace there; but I can't find it.

And even in this, might you find calm there? Calm at the
crystalheart of the storm?

That's what I'm looking for. The serene heart at the center
of the storm, the loving part of the goddess, as she explains it all
to me; and she might take me away in the process; but I will try to
be open to her. Listen to her. And see what she has to say...

Speak to me, Goddess, darkweaver. Reveal yourself.

Listen. And see.

And feel: what she has to say.

At the end of a long day, the silence of the lonely sailor,
out on the storm-gathered sea, the taste of salt and blood on the lips,
the nectar of the mystery of living, deeply and fully -- bared breast
to the wind of change.

There I am.

It is nice to know that I have a friend in thee -- simply
that, for now.